At ground zero, more height but not enough vitality

Blair KaminTribune architecture critic

There have been so many skyscraper designs unveiled for ground zero that the public can be excused for being jaded about the latest bunch. But the plans for three new towers at the World Trade Center, made public Thursday by ground zero developer Larry Silverstein, nevertheless command attention because of their dramatic reassertion of height after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks made people jittery about skyscrapers. Two would be about as tall as the Empire State Building, which measures 1,250 feet without its antenna.

A first impression is that, while none is dazzling, the three together would restore a much-needed jolt of verticality to the sheared-off lower Manhattan skyline.

At the same time, one worries about the wisdom of putting so many enormous towers, including the neighboring 1,776-foot Freedom Tower, in one place. The renderings make the quartet look something like a march of the giants. The 16-acre ground zero site still desperately needs the finely grained, leavening agents of culture and retailing to make it something other than a suburban office park on steroids.

The office towers -- by London architects Norman Foster and Richard Rogers, and Tokyo's Fumihiko Maki -- would step up toward the Freedom Tower, as suggested in Daniel Libeskind's ground zero master plan, and line the eastern edge of the Sept. 11 memorial and its twin reflecting pools.

Foster's, which would rise to 1,254 feet, is the most captivating, with four quadrants rising to four diamonds at the summit. The design will undoubtedly remind Chicagoans of the attention-hogging, diamond-topped skyscraper at 150 N. Michigan Ave. But Foster's vertical proportions would give his skyscraper a sense of lift its Chicago counterpart conspicuously lacks. The four diamonds could make an iconic statement, one that subtly recalls a slice-topped tower, inclining toward the memorial, at precisely the same site in Libeskind's master plan.

Rogers' tower, a 1,155-footer with pinnacles that would soar another 100 feet, also appears well-handled, boldly expressing its structure like Chicago's X-braced John Hancock Center but with shoulderlike setbacks that evoke the classic Manhattan skyscrapers of the past.

Maki's tower, the shortest at 947 feet, would transform from a parallelogram to a trapezoid as it rises, its upper diagonal walls self-effacingly drawing the eye toward the Rogers and Foster extravaganzas.

Clearly, this group lacks the unity of Libeskind's master plan, with its spiraling crystalline towers. But real cities aren't monolithic; they're diverse, reflecting the influence of different hands at different times. The question is whether there's enough diversity here to prevent these towers from resembling a Manhattan version of Dallas or Houston, which collect skyscrapers by world-class architects like so many trophies but don't offer much vitality on the ground.

True, there are some optimistic signs. As suggested in Libeskind's master plan, streets run through much of the ground zero site, breaking up the old World Trade Center's city-deadening superblock. Maki is proposing street-level amenities, such as a multileveled passageway through which commuters will be able to pass on their way to Wall Street. But none of the buildings will have storefronts or shops that directly face the memorial.

Perhaps it is wise to respect the memorial's sanctity. One worries, however, about the site becoming funereal. Libeskind's master plan brilliantly used low-slung cultural buildings to make the transition in scale and use from the towers to the memorial. His design exhibited a crackling tension between remembrance and renewal. All that seems utterly lacking here. Unintentionally symbolizing this shortcoming, the drawings released Thursday left out a performing arts building alongside Freedom Tower, which is to be designed by Frank Gehry.

Still, as the experience of the last few years suggests, the designs almost certainly will change. We still have to hear from the New York Police Department, which forced a major shift at Freedom Tower because of concerns about a vehicle-delivered bomb. Just one of the towers, Maki's, has committed tenants.

Maybe the uncertainty is a blessing in disguise. In its present state, this trio of towers -- and the entire ground zero site -- needs work before it fully realizes the promise of Libeskind's master plan.